[ SECRET POST #3055 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3055 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 072 secrets from Secret Submission Post #436.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 2 3 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

In RL, I wouldn't disagree with you, but this is fiction/fantasy. There's no healthy reason for being involved with a vampire, a pirate, a serial killer, an autobot, the Hulk, or any of the other myriad things that pop up in fic, but I'm pretty sure readers don't consider these models for healthy relationships.

Humans--especially women--are sexual omnivores, which is why things like this exist:

http://www.amazon.com/Taken-T-Rex-Dinosaur-Erotica-Christie-ebook

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

I realize it is fiction/fantasy. However, I find it a bit disturbing that adults would have fantasies about teens. (I understand that a lot of it is teens writing about teens, which is why I don't condemn. I just don't want to see it.)

I also have issues sometimes with the other relationships you mention. Such as I can't watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer because the relationship between Buffy and Angel squicks me to no end. Why on earth would someone hundreds of years old be interested in a teen? Basically, any relationship in which there is a power disparity between the people involved (or the people involved and the reader if there is an underage component), I have issues with it. This might be partially due to me being a teacher, maybe? Again, I wouldn't call someone out over it, but there have been some posts and things that have really disturbed me.

That link didn't work for me. Amazon said there was no such page?

[(Anonymous)]

I similarly have dislike big age difference/power difference ships, and so I avoid them. But until I can read people's minds or separate out the age part from all the other aspects of the ship dynamic, I won't judge people for it. It's common enough on here to see "I never thought I shipped/kinked on X until...." secrets where people seem baffled themselves as to why they find something intriguing or hot. People can get turned on by a wide range of things and it means nothing about their RL propensities.

(Sorry about the link--it was to an example of the small but active body of self-published dinosaur/human porn. If you're curious you can Google it ;) )

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

I might judge people in my mind if I can see other things about the situation that bother me. However, as I have said several times, as long as I don't see anyone actively hurting anyone or as long as someone isn't actively seeking me out to bother me, I'm not going to say anything about it. It isn't my place to police others.

That is an odd one that I hadn't heard of before. People are extremely interesting and complicated about this stuff!

[(Anonymous)]

DA

Why on earth would someone hundreds of years old be interested in a teen?

Because that is the fantasy? That of all the people that person has met in the hundreds of years they've been on this planet, THIS person is the one above all others that they choose (I could also be facetious and suggest that there aren't too many hundred-year-olds pottering about so their dating pool would be pretty slim if you insisted they only dated their own age group). And 100s of years old is usually presented physically as an attractive young person.

One of the core elements of these ships is the fantasy of power imbalance, although not, perhaps, as you perceive it; the fantasy is that Buffy, the one the viewer is meant to relate to, has the power - of redemption, of control, of love, of life and death - over Angel. In the same way, a lot of people who ship teen/adult as adults do so from the POV of the teen, not the adult. In that case it's a fantasy of the relationships you would have liked to be in when you were a teen, with the more mature knowledge you have of how relationships can be. At it's core it's fix-it fic (the same way I'd argue that adults writing high school AUs are writing fix-it fics, and creating the world they'd have liked back then from the wiser position of being older).

If that kind of dynamic is a huge squick for you regardless of the character's ages then of course it's not going to appeal to you. But despite your insistence that you'd never call someone out for liking this stuff, you're pretty judgmental about why someone might enjoy it.

[(Anonymous)]

As I said, I can understand why someone younger would like the idea. I can't say that I never had fantasies when I was a teenager about a character/actor/whomever being so caught up in me that an age difference wouldn't matter. I just can't understand an older person having that fantasy. Wanting to be the one to go after the naive person with little to no worldly experience. Yes, the pool of hundred-year-old partners would be small, but there is still the pool of people who have had at least some life experience. Like the show Forever. Sure, Henry Morgan is unlikely to find anyone to match his hundreds-year-old self. But both of the relationships they portrayed him having as an immortal were with adults who had some worldly experience.

If that kind of dynamic is a huge squick for you regardless of the character's ages then of course it's not going to appeal to you. But despite your insistence that you'd never call someone out for liking this stuff, you're pretty judgmental about why someone might enjoy it.
I am completely judgmental as to why an adult would want to see a teen with an adult. As I said several times, I understand why the fantasy would appeal to a younger person, but an older person having this fantasy bothers me. I just don't go around telling people that this bothers me. I keep my judgment and comments to myself. (Except in an anon situation where I am not actually commenting directly to the person and am instead just venting, as in this case.) Does it matter that I judge this fantasy internally? Will people feel it through the internet and start quaking in their boots that "oh no, some person on the internet is secretly judging my fantasy somewhere"?

[(Anonymous)]

Again, you're obtusely or otherwise, missing the point that the vast majority of people in fandom who have this kink identify with the younger party whether they're adults or not. You seem to think that everyone who ships something with an age gap is basically a predator, so yes, if that's your attitude it kind of does matter.

[(Anonymous)]

As someone who both likes and writes May/December relationships:

I am completely judgmental as to why an adult would want to see a teen with an adult.

In my case, it's because I like age gaps. When I was a teenager, I didn't get along with people my age at all. It wasn't until I hit my thirties that I started finding people in the same mental space as I was, and having gone through similar experiences. I shipped teenager/adult when I was a teenager, because adults were the people that I bonded with. Now that I am in my thirties, I still find older men attractive. And by that I mean men in their 50's, 60's, or even older. I am older, but the age gap is still there.

Just because I am older doesn't mean I don't remember how it felt to be a teenager. Even if I can look back and laugh at some of the foolish things I did. I was also denied part of my sexuality back when I was a teenager. I didn't understand it, AND I was so sheltered that if I'd had the knowledge people today have, I would have known what my abuser (who wasn't an adult, but a fellow teen, BTW) was doing to me.

I like writing self-actualized teens (yes, that's a fantasy. I get that.) because if I could go back and be a teenager again, I would prefer to do so with the knowledge and wisdom I have gained by living longer.

Just my perspective.